June 15, 2019

Free College for All and Other National Platform Proposals

by wj

I have been reading, with some bemusement, the calls from several (most? all?) of the Democratic candidates for free college for all. I’m bemused because I just don’t see this as a Federal issue. An issue nationwide, to be sure, but that's not really the same thing.

Let me be clear, I absolutely agree that the cost of college has gotten totally out of control. To my mind, someone attending a state college/university (whether Land Grant or otherwise) ought to be able to cover their costs, including tuition and room-and-board, with a half time job. That’s half time at something not much over minimum wage – say washing dishes. It was possible in the late ’60s when I was in school, which I know because I did it. It wasn't easy, but it definitely was possible. It should be possible today.

That said, it isn’t obvious why the Federal government should be involved. After all, we already have universal (free) public education for grammar school and high school. Funded (over 90%) by the state and local governments.

Free (better yet, cheap) college for all would doubtless require the states to make some changes. Tax increases probably -- but it's a better investment that tax breaks to (theoretically) attract companies. Deciding that funding college athletics isn’t really a reasonable priority would be a good step as well. Quite possibly other things also. But it could be done. (Let me add a caveat that charging more for out-of-state/foreign students is a whole different discussion.)

So why are the candidates pushing this? Besides it being a feel-good issue, of course.

I particularly like the story at the end of a whole family (some 30 people) who voted for Erdogan's party in March. But were so irritated by the forced do-over that they all voted to the opposition candidate this time. Part of why he got a much bigger margin.

These Mexican and Central and Central American should escape their confines, grow up undercover, become heavily armed, and seek me out and murder me for my refusal to seek extraordinary cruel and violent vengeance against the entire American edifice.

At the very least, Social Services should be sicced on one Sarah Fabian's household to examine and interrogate her children and her pets for signs of physical abuse and neglect, though no doubt their mother has coached them well in Nazi and Stalinist legal dodges.

"Mommy dearest was merely doing her job as a mother when she set the hot iron on sissy's flesh numerous times.."

Does she keep toilet paper in her house? Do her children have adult human bite mark acars on their bodies.

Fabian should be reassigned to prosecute the Oregon Republican legislative vermin who are enlisting conservative militias to murder decent liberals in their state.

She could get her legalistic sadist jones on condemning the oregon filth to savage executions, but natch, it's America and nothing happens to those conservative subhumans.

But it is going to.

The vengeance backlog agaisnt the conservative movement is legion and unquenchable. To the extent that so-called Democrats participated in these activities thru the years, maybe they should emigrate to escape the same fate.

The only upside of letting the Federal government prohibit soap for the immigrant kids to bathe themselves is that perhaps at least conservative murderous vermin aren't considering MAKING soap out of them.

On the other hand, neither practice would raise a conservative constitutional eyebrow like EVERYTHING else these bugs hate about the Federal government, which they WILL declare unconstitutional:

I've been thinking about that Simpson's knock-off glide down the elevator p made (too identical, too pat, too perfectly ridiculous not to be planned) to announce his candidacy.

If it is learned that p and his candidacy and administration is a Hillary Clinton-controlled plant on the subhuman republican side, which went horribly wrong when the oaf cuck won the election only after defeating the other stinking conservatives in the republican primary ... the latter which is why Clinton paid him to run as a Republican ..

He chose the dregs of the very worst corrupt conservative fools he could find in the muck of the conservative movement to ruin our government, even when he KNEW all of them had his number, but nevertheless would jump at the chance to smooch his butt hole for eight years to carry out the malignant conservative ruination of this country.

Maybe America can get away with a simple canned laugh track to go with the historical record of this era .... including the Nobel Prize for Hillary Clinton for planning and choreographing the bloody self-immolation of the republican party by hiring p ... and dispense with killing all conservatives in a prolonged, all encompassing savage civil war, because they committed suicide by their own hand and let us off the hook.

Hope for the funny ending.

Pray even.

On our knees, so we'll already be down there to suck p's cock for four more years if I'm wrong.

Odd that the 3-out-of-10 Democrats(liberals) who support open borders count in that poll is not replicated among the many diverse liberals here at Obsidian Wings who have never expressed support for open borders, if we are using the real meaning of "open".

It could be that three out of ten Democrats on the street are just as dumb and ill-informed about immigration as their counterparts to the right who profess that they want "closed" borders.

I'm perfectly aware that there are at least three out of ten conservatives who disapprove of the government keeping soap away from these kids, but they are peep-less in this debate, probably because they love them tax cuts and don't want anyone else to share the falling apples on the tax cut cart that would be upset if they made any kind of noise about their tyrant torturing the kids.

The most interesting thing was that 3 in 10 Democrats support open borders.

To you.

What was interesting about that, to you? What made it, to you, worthy of mention? Do you agree that 3 out of 10 Democrats support open borders? Where did that statistic come from? What did "open borders" mean, in whatever context that statistic came from?

What point do you wish to make by bringing this up?

People think all kinds of things. Very few people fit into a neat little box. None of that should surprise anyone.

I suspect that the number of (D)'s who support "open borders", in the sense of utterly unregulated entry and exit to the United State by non-citizens, is vanishingly small. not 3 out of 10, but more like 3 out of 1000. If that.

My data points are the small army of people I know who are on the social justice warrior spectrum. The only person, literally the only person, I have ever heard advocate for open borders, in any context, in any place, at any time, is CharlesWT, here on ObWi.

Not one other person, ever.

So I call bullshit on that particular factoid.

As far as the "more in common" mantra, I do not recognize any common ground with anyone who supports the current president. If you voted for him, if you approve of his performance in office, if you plan to vote for him or are even considering voting for him in 2020, I'm not really interested in a conversation with you.

From my point of view, you are in need of what I can only describe as a social and political metanoia. A conversion. A transformative change of heart and mind.

Go do that, and maybe we can have a conversation. Short of that, I don't see the point. You go your way, I'll go mine, and I'll see you at the ballot box, and in the street as needed.

The only person, literally the only person, I have ever heard advocate for open borders, in any context, in any place, at any time, is CharlesWT, here on ObWi.

I may have previously misspoken, but my stance is that it should be as easy as possible for non-citizens to come to the US to work. As long as they come through the front door and make their identity and presence officially known. And some procedure set up for those here illegally to qualify for legal status.

The 70th question is "Do you think we should have basically open borders or do you think we need secure borders?".

Myself, I wouldn't have lasted 70 questions. But if I somehow had, having been primed by question after question about whether I approve of various Trump idiocies, I'd probably treat it as asking whether I agreed with his profoundly stupid immigration policy: I don't.

Why a Government Lawyer Argued Against Giving Immigrant Kids Toothbrushes

I think we might want to cut the lady a break. Suppose you are a lawyer. It's your job to present the best case you can for your client. Even when the best case is utterly ridiculous -- and can you think of a better case she could have made? Definitely not a position any sensible person would want to be in, but sometimes you get stuck with a client who has no redeeming value whatsoever.

In fact, by making such a totally ridiculous argument, she probably increased the chances of the court finding against the government. Which has to be all to the good.

I find most of the "facts" presented in the piece unconvincing. And I have no need of being convinced that people see each other in cartoonish ways, nothing is more obvious.

Nobody has a good immigration policy. It's a hard problem, and nobody has figured it out yet. My issue with the (R) approach so far is it's deliberate cruelty and it's demonization of would-be immigrants.

If you didnt vote for Trump, don't support him, and don't plan to vote for him in 2020, then you're not "in need of conversion" by my lights. I don't hate Trump supporters, don't wish them ill. I will and do work with them, break bread with them. I'm happy to talk to them, just not about politicAL economy or anything related.

And hell yeah, IMO they are in need of a change of heart. Trump is a toxic and malicious individual, and that infects everything he touches. You can't separate that from his policies and smile away. Support him and you align yourself with that.

My view that Democrats cant come up with any positive immigration policy short of just letting everyone in means I am surprised that ONLY 3 in 10 are consciously for open borders.

My sense was that the entire exercise reported in the article was intended to have people of one faith (party) interact with those of the other party. Thereby to discover the reality that the guys on the other side aren't quite like the characterture they hold. And it worked.

Perhaps I have encountered different Democrats than Marty. But my sense is that their views run to:
-- no, unrestricted open borders (like we have between states) are NOT a good idea.
-- that said, we need more immigration, not less. How we select which would-be immigrants to accept is going to need discussion. But that's about qualifications, whether we allow "come to work, but not to stay" immigrants, etc.
-- there's a lot of problems with our current handling of immigrants and asylum seekers. The vast majority of those being lack of resources to process them. If, for example, we had an adequate number of immigration judges, people applying for asylum would have years before their cases get heard.
-- Further securing of the border isn't anywhere near the top of the problem list. Especially since overstayed visas, not illegal entries, are by far the biggest source of illegal immigrants. I haven't heard much, from either side, on how that might be addressed.

Until you demand a national ID card, for maternity-ward immigrants as well as port-of-entry immigrants, your nativist bleating is just noise.

When ONLY "card-carrying Americans" (whatever their birthplace, color, language, or fealty to He, Trump) can take a job, get a loan, buy insurance or electricity or a gun, register a car, board a plane, or cast a vote -- and not until then -- I will be willing to take seriously the pleas for "border security" and arguments for "merit-based immigration" which are nothing but librul-bashing at the moment.

"My view that Democrats cant come up with any positive immigration policy short of just letting everyone in means I am surprised that ONLY 3 in 10 are consciously for open borders."

Your view is utter ill-informed bullshit.

I'd supply cites but they have been out there for 30 years so if you haven't found them on your own by now it's obvious why.

Ted Kennedy authored the 1990 Immigration Bill and President George H. W. Bush signed it.

Did everyone like it? Of course not.

Since then, there have been at least three major bipartisan Congressional attempts with Presidential support to bring major immigration reform to the table.

Did everyone like everything in the bills? Of course not.

Every fucking time, for mere electoral advantage, the demagogues in one Party torpedoed the attempts by walking away (Cuban immigrant shitheel Rubio walked real fast, the brown little coward) so they could scare the shit out of their dumbass constituents at election about invading brown hordes voting illegally for the Democratic Party, which doesn't even make sense as a meme.

The signal went out to FOX (though now, remarkably, the hate signals are now generated by the propaganda networks and directed orders to the current set of vermin) and the other legion fascist propaganda outlets to generalize and demagogue about disease-carrying terrorists in baby carriages bringing contagion, mass murder, and worst ... possibly a few more Democratic voters, the latter also otherwise known as contagion and mass murder to right wing filth.

The key to getting rational, sensible immigration reform is first, killing the Republican Party dead.

And Russell and others have pointed out, here's another reason for mass migrations. But as with Stalin during the 1930s as he covered up his own self-induced crop failures in the Ukraine, we taxpayers, we so-called pigfucking obedient citizens, are not permitted to see the evidence.

The GOP bullshit regarding immigration is so utterly cynical that I am hereby joining the fake three in ten Democrats who believe totally open borders are the way to go, as my way of performing a dipsydoodle backfield reversal of Cleek's Law.

Whatever pisses off Republicans, double down on it and smirk.

When dealing with pigs, get right down in the muck with them.

The more diseased, criminal, and terrorist the potential immigrant arriving at the border, they go to the front of the line, hopefully to get their contagions, criminality, and terrorism right in the faces and all over the children of the entire republican infrastructure.

Once they come thru the gate, pick them up in limousines, containing ice buckets full of welcoming champagne, and transport them to the nearest polling place so they can immediately participate in this exceptional experiment we call America.

Then hire them at above prevailing wages, with benefits, to construct gerrymandering walls around red states.

The people coming here from Central America are likely either Catholic or evangelical. Quite a number of the Africans, likewise. They are famously entrepreneurial. They work their behinds off. They are generally socially conservative and have strong family bonds and community cohesion.

They are, according to what (R)'s would have us believe, a shoo-in (R) constituency.

If the (R)'s wanted to stop being a minority party desperately hanging on to power, they'd issue a bunch of visas, sponsor programs to get immigrants settled and assimilated, and then sit back and reap the benefits of a generation or two of loyal (R) votes. Millions of them.

Yes and No. What they don't do is understand. Specifically, they don't get why all those socially conservative, family oriented, religious folks (Hispanic, black, immigrant, etc.) aren't thronging to support them. I mean, why would a few decades of being demonized put anyone off?

The good news (for Democrats) is that they are unlikely to have a collective epiphany. And even if they did, the demonizing is just too baked is at this point. The Autopsy Report after the 2012 election may well have been the last chance to turn things around for a generation or two.

Unspeakable and horrible. I said it almost as a joke about Sarah Huckabee Sanders (not much of one) but it is really the truth about this: it will live in infamy.

On a separate subject, I discover I still can't post links, so this is a story from the Guardian about Boris Johnson by a former employer of his. Tony P might enjoy it as an example of current British civil invective:

• Max Hastings is a former editor of the Daily Telegraph and the London Evening Standard

Six years ago, the Cambridge historian Christopher Clark published a study of the outbreak of the first world war, titled The Sleepwalkers. Though Clark is a fine scholar, I was unconvinced by his title, which suggested that the great powers stumbled mindlessly to disaster. On the contrary, the maddest aspect of 1914 was that each belligerent government convinced itself that it was acting rationally.

It would be fanciful to liken the ascent of Boris Johnson to the outbreak of global war, but similar forces are in play. There is room for debate about whether he is a scoundrel or mere rogue, but not much about his moral bankruptcy, rooted in a contempt for truth. Nonetheless, even before the Conservative national membership cheers him in as our prime minister – denied the option of Nigel Farage, whom some polls suggest they would prefer – Tory MPs have thronged to do just that.

He would not recognise the truth, whether about his private or political life, if confronted by it in an identity parade
I have known Johnson since the 1980s, when I edited the Daily Telegraph and he was our flamboyant Brussels correspondent. I have argued for a decade that, while he is a brilliant entertainer who made a popular maître d’ for London as its mayor, he is unfit for national office, because it seems he cares for no interest save his own fame and gratification.

Tory MPs have launched this country upon an experiment in celebrity government, matching that taking place in Ukraine and the US, and it is unlikely to be derailed by the latest headlines. The Washington columnist George Will observes that Donald Trump does what his political base wants “by breaking all the china”. We can’t predict what a Johnson government will do, because its prospective leader has not got around to thinking about this. But his premiership will almost certainly reveal a contempt for rules, precedent, order and stability.

A few admirers assert that, in office, Johnson will reveal an accession of wisdom and responsibility that have hitherto eluded him, not least as foreign secretary. This seems unlikely, as the weekend’s stories emphasised. Dignity still matters in public office, and Johnson will never have it. Yet his graver vice is cowardice, reflected in a willingness to tell any audience, whatever he thinks most likely to please, heedless of the inevitability of its contradiction an hour later.

Like many showy personalities, he is of weak character. I recently suggested to a radio audience that he supposes himself to be Winston Churchill, while in reality being closer to Alan Partridge. Churchill, for all his wit, was a profoundly serious human being. Far from perceiving anything glorious about standing alone in 1940, he knew that all difficult issues must be addressed with allies and partners.

Churchill’s self-obsession was tempered by a huge compassion for humanity, or at least white humanity, which Johnson confines to himself. He has long been considered a bully, prone to making cheap threats. My old friend Christopher Bland, when chairman of the BBC, once described to me how he received an angry phone call from Johnson, denouncing the corporation’s “gross intrusion upon my personal life” for its coverage of one of his love affairs.

“We know plenty about your personal life that you would not like to read in the Spectator,” the then editor of the magazine told the BBC’s chairman, while demanding he order the broadcaster to lay off his own dalliances.

Bland told me he replied: “Boris, think about what you have just said. There is a word for it, and it is not a pretty one.”

He said Johnson blustered into retreat, but in my own files I have handwritten notes from our possible next prime minister, threatening dire consequences in print if I continued to criticise him.

Johnson would not recognise truth, whether about his private or political life, if confronted by it in an identity parade. In a commonplace book the other day, I came across an observation made in 1750 by a contemporary savant, Bishop Berkeley: “It is impossible that a man who is false to his friends and neighbours should be true to the public.” Almost the only people who think Johnson a nice guy are those who do not know him.

There is, of course, a symmetry between himself and Jeremy Corbyn. Corbyn is far more honest, but harbours his own extravagant delusions. He may yet prove to be the only possible Labour leader whom Johnson can defeat in a general election. If the opposition was led by anybody else, the Tories would be deservedly doomed, because we would all vote for it. As it is, the Johnson premiership could survive for three or four years, shambling from one embarrassment and debacle to another, of which Brexit may prove the least.

For many of us, his elevation will signal Britain’s abandonment of any claim to be a serious country. It can be claimed that few people realised what a poor prime minister Theresa May would prove until they saw her in Downing Street. With Boris, however, what you see now is almost assuredly what we shall get from him as ruler of Britain.

We can scarcely strip the emperor’s clothes from a man who has built a career, or at least a lurid love life, out of strutting without them. The weekend stories of his domestic affairs are only an aperitif for his future as Britain’s leader. I have a hunch that Johnson will come to regret securing the prize for which he has struggled so long, because the experience of the premiership will lay bare his absolute unfitness for it.

If the Johnson family had stuck to showbusiness like the Osmonds, Marx Brothers or von Trapp family, the world would be a better place. Yet the Tories, in their terror, have elevated a cavorting charlatan to the steps of Downing Street, and they should expect to pay a full forfeit when voters get the message. If the price of Johnson proves to be Corbyn, blame will rest with the Conservative party, which is about to foist a tasteless joke upon the British people – who will not find it funny for long.

This quote regarding Boris Johnson from GFTNC's link is one for the ages and provides some hope that England lives and shall flourish again once the conservative movement is wiped off the face of the Earth:

"We can scarcely strip the emperor’s clothes from a man who has built a career, or at least a lurid love life, out of strutting without them."

So, I guess if children are being murdered in the "concentration camps", may we pretty please ask filthy butthurt conservatives if we may transition to the more accurate "Death Camp", or "Extermination Camp" nomenclature.

Speaking of the Census Bureau, the Nazi Party, in their perpetual role modeling for the modern conservative movement, cam up with a cracksure name for their Census

Hollerith Machine
A machine developed to make the taking of the census much more efficient. The one used by the Nazis was developed by the German branch of IBM. Adolf Eichmann used it to gather data on Jews living in Germany, Austria and later Czechoslovakia.

erickson is not my favorite guy, but props for at least wanting to help.

baby steps, y'all.

one thing I take away from that thread is that Save The Children is now involved. we are now right up there with the third world.

I don't really give a crap if people have a legitimate claim to asylum or not. That's what the courts are for. When somebody shows up on your doorstep and places themselves in your custody, you are obliged to treat them with decency.

Here is a twitter thread from the Texas Tribune regarding people donating supplies that are being turned away. If you read the responses to the thread, there are some neo-Nazi types commenting, and I've seen this in many of the informative journalism twitter threads that I've read.

We need to do something right away. There are protests planned for July 12, but that's too little and too late (although, of course, I'll join). What are we going to do now?

Catching up after a weekend of dealing with aged-Greek-mother problems:

GftNC,

I appreciate your examples of current British invective. But I must say it seems tame compared to the Greatest Hits of a bygone age. The rapier wit of Disraeli and Churchill is what I long for. I admit that I have never made a systematic comparison between rapiers and meat-axes as instruments for popping balloons like Boris Johnson and He, Trump. It may well be that, in a US full of Martys and a UK full of his British equivalents, rapiers are as outmoded as whalebone corsets, of course.

dr ngo,

When I brought up George Will, I was of two minds: should I cite him as my source of the "worth doing badly" quote, or should I mention that most of the (to me) memorable George Will aphorisms are in fact Will quoting (generally with attribution) wittier people? For the sake of brevity, I went with the first thing. I am fairly certain that

"A horse that can count is a clever horse, not a clever mathematician

and

Education is the process of putting something into children's heads, not letting something out

just like

Anything worth doing is worth doing badly

are gags that George Will attributed to some (possibly not original) other author. So, much as I generally despise George Will, I hope I did not leave you with the impression that blatant plagiarism is among his faults -- like climate denialism for example.